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LIZZY BORDEN

Lizzy Borden carved his name to metal world in the 80’s with the horror looking visual stage show as well as look. All in all four full lengths came out of Lizzy’s horror dungeon during the 80’s, until he kind of vanished from the map without leaving many traces in the 90’s. Even though the 90’s was quite a silent period for Lizzy, he worked on his side project band Starwood. In 2000 the brand new album DEAL WITH THE DEVIL came out, but once again it took for about seven years to get the excellent APPOINTMENT WITH DEATH out. Lizzy and his horror masked crew arrived at Swedenrock. Therefore we had an excellent opportunity of questioning about his new album and the past and the present and the future. This interview was done at Swedenrock in the beginning of June, but it is timeless and extremely detailed.

INTERVIEW BY MARKO SYRJÄLÄ AND ARTO LEHTINEN

PiICTURES BY MARKO SYRJÄLÄ

TRANSCRIPTED BY MURPHY

FINALLY IN SCANDINAVIA !

First of all, welcome back to the Scandinavia, at last!

Finally! After 25 years we finally made it!

Actually, as far as I remember, you were in Scandinavia doing a promo for MASTER OF DISGUISE in 1989, right?

Hmmm, I can’t remember…. Yeah, I’m not sure, it was so long ago!

Anyway, this is your first time here playing shows in here. Why has it taken so damn long?

You know, I have to blame the record label because every time we put a record out and we want to tour every country in Europe, the record label says “No. Don’t come, no one wants to see you. Don’t bother”. And they keep saying it, they just said it recently “Don’t come, no one wants to see you”. And it’s like ok; we were stupid for listening because obviously there is an audience here in Sweden and in other countries.

If you don’t do any gigs you don’t sell any albums, if you don’t sell any albums no one will come to see your shows… the same old story!

That’s what I kept telling them “We need to play” and they said, “Don’t, no one cares” and that’s totally wrong. I mean, if people see us they’ll be more inclined to know the songs, buy the albums, be part of the show. (The audience is) the 6th member of the band, a lot of them out there don’t even know the songs but they’re involved in the show. It is tragic that they don’t know the songs but hopefully we are going to fix that. We’re not listening to the record label or anyone else from now on. We are coming here and we’re working with someone right now to book October/November. I don’t even know who these people are but I don’t care, we’re coming.

This time you’re doing two festivals in Europe this Swedenrock and then little later on there’s Bang Your Head in Germany. Do you have plans to do more shows here in near future?

We’re doing Bang Your Head in June and then we’re talking to some agent right now who is booking us for October/November with like 2 shows in each country.

Speaking a little bit about your Swedenrock show which ended a few hours ago, wasn’t it kind of dull to play such an ambitious show with lot of theatrics, at 12 o’clock in the afternoon?

Yeah, it was but I’m fine with that. Even though it’s 12 o’clock we’re still on the main stage so I was happy about that. But I knew Saturday everyone is burned out. If we were to play 12 o’clock Thursday things would have been different, but you know, I’m happy with the response we got and I’m just happy to play in Sweden finally.

Lizzy live at Swedenrock

NEW ALBUM- APPOINTMENT WITH DEATH

Well, let’s speak about your new album APPOINMENT WITH DEATH. It sounds like the old school meets new school metal. You got a fresh new sound on it but however it also sounds very 80’s. There are lots of elements which do sound bands like Iron Maiden and Judas Priest, do you agree with that?

You know, I think that is in a lot of people’s music and it’s definitely in ours. I told a story recently, we were rehearsing, not with Lizzy Borden but in another band before Lizzy Borden and someone came in and said, “Man, you sound like Iron Maiden”. This was before Iron Maiden broke in the United States and I had never heard of them. You got twin guitars, a screaming vocalist, you got all this stuff. I went out and bought all…you know they only had the first two records I think at that time. In fact we used to warm up with a Maiden song just for fun because we rehearsed so much. Then I realized that we were starting to get too far down there so I stopped that. In fact I stopped even listening to Maiden or anyone else because it was creeping into the music. So it did kind of creep into the first album. So when we decided to do APPOINTMENT WITH DEATH we wanted the influence to be the whole Lizzy Borden catalogue. Of course the first album is going to creep in there and you’re going to get a taste of some of the early 80s, the beginning of the metal onslaught that happened before us, for everyone else. It had been seven years since we recorded the previous album DEAL WITH THE DEVIL and that album was very different to its predecessor MASTER OF DISQUISE. You know, I think every record has been different. The next one, the discussions we’ve had so far, it’s going to be completely different. So it’s just one of those things. We just try to have fun! It’s such a hard thing making a record and knowing it is not going to sell a million records. But there is so much work that goes into it and its like, “Well ok, if we’re going to do this at least make is so creative that we at least enjoy it.” We enjoy the creative process, we enjoy creating the thing. I mean, I spent so much time on the vocals on this record, just me in a room doing it myself.

You have a lot of well know names questing on APPOINTMENT WITH DEATH. How did you managed to get all these guys: George Lynch, Dave Meniketti, Erik Rutan and Corey Beaulieau to play on your album?

Everybody came different. Corey from Trivium was a huge Lizzy Borden fan. He played the Download Festival and he had a Lizzy Borden shirt on and everyone kept telling me that this guy was a huge Lizzy Borden fan. I ended up meeting him in Phoenix one night and he just…er… do you know Dimebag’s girlfriend’s name?

Can’t remember her name…?

Anyway, she is the one who introduced me to him and he is such a huge Lizzy Borden fan. So we ended up talking and we partied many times and then I told him to come down when we were recording. He was there playing in LA and he came down and did some really cool stuff on the song “Abnormal”. And then Dave Meniketti came through my manager, he managed Y&T for a brief moment and somehow that worked out. George Lynch came because Martin Andersson, our bass player, played with George Lynch. Eric Brutan came from Metal Blade because Metal Blade works with Eric on a lot of their Death Metal projects and stuff. And he was like “Ok let’s do this interesting ‘Death Metal guy mixes massive amounts of vocals’”. It was different for him, it was different for us. It was an interesting little pairing.

Well, presumably in sound wise it was very important to have him (Eric Rutan) taking responsibility for the mixing of the album?

It wasn’t the obvious choice, I actually didn’t want it. I wanted the guy doing MASTER OF DISQUISE, he’s also RUSH’s old producer. I thought he did a brilliant job on MASTER OF DISQUISE and I was really happy with that but Metal Blade said “no, you got to have…you know, you’ve got this really polished kind of record, lets dirty it up with…” I didn’t even know who Erik Brutan was you know. So I just met him and he was a big fan and the whole thing. We spent like two weeks together and, you know, it was interesting. It was an interesting pairing and you know we came up with a record that’s pretty original. It doesn’t really sound like anybody else I think cause…mainly cause I got so many vocals mixed with really heavy Ira’s guitar and, you know, Martins heavy bass and Joey’s doing some really interesting drum stuff so it’s different and Erik made it different. If we’d had a different producer it would have been more polished and would have been more, really, you know the tone would have been more polished. So, I mean you just never know. It’s really who you choose to work with that’s going to dictate cause you know, me and Joey produced this record, knew every little piece of it. We worked tirelessly on it but when we gave it to Erik, he took it in such a different direction; it was like “WHOA!!!” you know? So I claim…I’m responsible for the production but the mix is all Erik. I really had nothing to do with it.

As far as I know Eric has also been a big fan of Lizzy Borden?

Yeah, he saw us early on. Every time I talk to someone from the Death Metal era “I was a huge Lizzy Borden fan”. How do you get from being a fan of Lizzy Borden to going into Death Metal?! You know Chris Banes from band Six Feet Under? He is a huge Lizzy Borden fan. He saw us early on. You know, it’s so funny how we played a Death Metal festival recently, the New England Metal Fest and it really worked out well for us. I didn’t know how it was going to work. If we had been on that show in the 80’s we would have got killed. But now, we’re playing to 16 year old kids who don’t know the difference. They’re just having a great time. It was one of those moments where we really scored big.

You said earlier that this album presents something new for Lizzy Borden. How much your new guitarist Ira Black has to do it? He has had a long metal background with such bands as Vicious Rumours and Heathen .

He’s such a…the good thing about Ira is he’s a huge fan of Lizzy Borden. He grew up on LOVE YOU TO PIECES and all that stuff so when he came in…. but he’s such a heavy guitar player. We never had that. When he came in, all of the sudden he just made this stuff heavy. The VISUAL LIES stuff, that we didn’t play tonight, he made so heavy. I was like “wow”! The hairs were standing up on the back of my head the first time we rehearsed. I offered him the gig right then and there because everyone else was playing it the Yngwie way and I’m just not a fan you know? So I didn’t want all that. I wanted someone who could play chords and solos and he was the man. He brought lots of new things to the table but so did everybody in this band. With DEAL WITH THE DEVIL and MASTERS OF DISGUISE I wrote everything and demoed everything myself. Then we brought it in and let the band play on it. For this album I wanted to work in a rehearsal studio with everybody. And that is what we did. It was six months of torture because I can do everything quicker! But everybody brought something. Martin (Anderson) came in with some ideas and he had never written on a Lizzy Borden record before. Ira came in with six songs of really cool stuff, which we pieced together. Joey (Scott) came up with a couple of riffs like the riff on “Tomorrow Never Comes”, he’s the one who wrote that. So everyone came up with a little piece and then we all just put it together and worked together.

So Lizzy Borden is now more like a real band again?

It’s a band again. Yeah, we hadn’t done that since…err…since Visualize. So that was good, it was fun, but it was also hard though because I was used to doing it really quick. With DEAL WITH THE DEVIL and MASTERS OF DISGUISE it was easy but this was really hard. But now we’ve been a band for a couple of years now. So already the guys are working on ideas separately but we’ve already talked about where we want to go. We shall see what happens, you never know until it starts! I’ve written a lot of things, you know, and I’m recording things and it’s very different than APPOINTMENT WITH DEATH.

THE STORY OF DEATH

The concept of the album as far as I know is based on death…APPOINTMENT WITH DEATH…

Right

I’m wondering why because death is one of the most commonly used themes in the metal generation? So many bands have been writing about death…

That’s one of the things that irritates me because no one ever reads my lyrics and I work so hard on them. (laughs) No one ever reads them. I have triple meanings, almost everything. If you read it, it’s like, you know…like my hero Shakespeare, so, you know, you read a line from Shakespeare and there are three or four meanings there, you know? And that’s what I’m trying to do with this. And death, I wanted to stress that I didn’t want it to be, you know, all about death. I wanted it to be more about the end of something instead if, you know…it’s like if Lizzy Borden ended today it would be the death of Lizzy Borden. It’s not a mortal death but it’s actually twenty five years of work that we did and it’s over.

Hmm… Okay?

So that’s kind of the way I looked at it. It wasn’t all about death, but you know…Alex Nelson, our guitarist you know?…I had so many different things to draw on that had to do with death that when I was writing, I mean I was writing like three or four in the morning, on my own, and thinking about all this stuff. And I had known other people that were friends of mine that committed suicide over the years….so I had all of that and I threw all that in, but really only a little piece of, you know, one or two songs had anything to do with actual death. Most of it was about the end of something.

I almost feel you reflect your lyrics to your visual things on stage…

We try to do a lot but, you know, it’s all about money. I mean we came here with no crew, trying to bring everything ourselves, you know? And we don’t get paid a heck of a lot of money for this, and we’re trying to put on the biggest show we can with whatever we have to do it. So we try and take the song and make it come alive on stage. And when we play in the states we have more props, bigger production, but with these one offs we come here with what we have. No crew, no nothing. And up until the second that we’re on stage it’s chaos. “We got to do this, we got to do that, I got to do this”…It’s one of those things. If we had to just walk on stage and play like most people do, it would be no big deal. But we really put everything we have into the production of the show. And of course if we have the great KISS production crew, everything would go smoothly, but it’s just chaos with us because we’re trying to do so much.

Talking about death?

SOMETHING FROM THE OLD DAYS

I just recently bought your MURDERESS LIVE DVD… from the past. It’s from 85′ or something. Is there any chance that you might do a proper DVD from the current tour with some nice tricks like you did today with all theatrics and stuff?

You know, probably not. The VISUAL LIES show that we did was…when we did that thing it was one night. It was my idea. People were starting to do video tapes back then. That was our very first tour. That was the last night of our very first tour. We went around the country in a motor home and came back and that was the last night. And we didn’t even have the production that we had six months later. And then we did the Visual Lies tour. We had, you know, the same people who built our production built the KISS production, the latest KISS tour…so we had this massive thing, but we didn’t film it. And it was such a better show. It’s unfortunate because if that was the show, it would have been a lot different, you know, because the only thing that people know was that very first thing. It was fun and it was great but it was one night and really, everything you hear, happened that night so…it’s flawed to perfection you know? And that’s how we live. (Laughs)

Some parts from the DVD look quite weird nowadays… How do you like that old stuff yourself when you see it now?

You know, from day one, when I see smiles out in the audience I’m happy because, you know, other people want do a horror show and they want people to just be horrified or shocked or whatever. I never wanted that. I only wanted fun. You know, I wanted our show to be a fun show from day one and even though it dips into horror. When we started that it was all about Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th and Halloween and all those movies and, you know, the same thing, when you’re in the audience with your girlfriend, way back then anyway, then you’d get scared and then you would laugh because you were scared of a movie. You know? And that is what I want. That was the premise for Lizzy Borden. When I started I told everyone, “This is the premise. I want that reaction of when you got scared and then you laughed because it was so absurd that you got scared by a movie”. That was kind of the reaction that we wanted for Lizzy Borden.

You used to have such a funny look back then… Big hair and spandex “laughs”

(Laughs) No Hey! Its part of my life…“laughs”

But I recently came across your new video, "Tomorrow Never Comes", on YouTube, and I noticed that you had a completely new costume and new make-up and stuff like that. How did you start making ideas about the new costume and the new visual things that it matched to modern day standards?

You know, I mean I knew I was going to play the “Angel of Death” and the angel of death didn’t look like these (laughs) you know? And plus I had…you know I dyed my hair black in the 90’s but no one ever knew it, but I did it again for the angel of death character, the oblivion character, you know, I designed that character. I knew how he would look. I didn’t know the feedback I was going to get from it (laughs) but I know the character so I kind of designed the character based on the lyrics of the record.

Are you somehow flattered that several bands from extreme metal to standard heavy metal are using, you know, all kinds of horror themes for example Lordi, from Finland, "heh" ?

I met those guys recently. I absolutely love their show, I must say. They have the same sensibilities. It’s about fun, you know? But it’s also about horror. But I saw them and I was like…I didn’t know one song but by the end of it I knew all their songs, you know? And to me that works. And yeah, we talked to them backstage and he told me that he loves the VISUAL LIES record and all this…It’s…you know, it’s great, I love it !You know we actually did a showcase for Bill Aucoin (former KISS manager), who’s their manager at the moment.

Yes I heard about that too.

But…it didn’t really work out. (Laughs)

Classic Lizzy in the mid 80’s !!!

THE LOST YEARS AND RETURN IN THE FOLD

Ah…tell me something, what happened for you after MASTER OF DISQUISE? You kind of faded away for a while.

We did. It was the death of heavy metal. I mean I live in California. I live in Los Angeles, Hollywood California so everything that happened in Hollywood, happened first, even the death of the scene. So it went from, you know, Mardi Gras in the streets, seven days a week for heavy metal. You know, the kids took over the whole place, leather jackets everywhere to down to nothing. So we went out and toured for almost four years on the MASTER OF DISQUISE record. I just was determined. I just stayed on there from the end of 89’ to…I don’t know, we just kept going, just kept going you know? I didn’t care. We had no record label. We weren’t signed to Metal Blade anymore. We just kept touring. And then, I don’t know. It just got to the point where I was spinning my wheels you know? So then I created…I just wanted to have some more fun and then I created kind of the first version of Starwood, which was a band called Diamond Dogs. And we spent like four years writing like 300 songs, maybe more. I mean when there was so many… it was ridiculous. Some of them ended up on the Starwood record years later. But that’s kind of what I did during that little gap in there. And then we wanted to get….you know, I got the heavy metal bug again and so we did DEAL WITH THE DEVIL.

So actually what was the starting point to get back with Lizzy Borden and start working DEAL WITH THE DEVIL?

Well, we got the offer for Bang Your Head and then the year later for Wacken so that was cool. We didn’t take them seriously though you know? I really….even though we got a good response and we ended up playing for a whole hell of a lot more people….but ah….In Bang Your Head we played more people, to more people than Deep Purple, and they headlined. So I thought that was pretty cool. You know, we went on at 1:00pm in the afternoon so…but Deep Purple’s one of my idols so, you know, that was really cool, you know, just to be on that bill but we already started getting the bug. You know, heavy metals part of…it’s like attached, you know? So it’s one of those things where I can’t stray for too long. Even though I love rock n roll and I love playing rock n roll, I can’t stay away. I love the whole thing so DEAL WITH THE DEVIL was a natural progression once we got to that point. And I also…Alex, our guitarist at the time, he didn’t touch his guitar for five years. And then we were at a barbecue one night and I said “don’t you want to play heavy metal again?” And he pulled it out and next thing you know we’re playing.

How was the actual writing process for DEALING WITH THE DEVIL after such a long break?

Umm…I had a studio, for my first studio and I had no band, so I did everything myself. I played keyboards, I played guitar, and I played bass. I brought Joey in on drums. Every time I had a song “come here”! And I nagged myself to write at least three songs a week. So I just said….I had a big list where I brought in three songs from the drums all the way to the final production, three songs a week, so I had such a back catalogue of material. I think “We Only Come Out at Night”, “Loving You Is Murder” and “State of Pain”; maybe there were two or three others that came out of that. You know, I never left the studio. I was like a mad crazy man, 24 hours a day. You know, 5:00 in the morning I’m working on stuff you know? So fast forward to 98’ I think or not even 98’…somewhere we started working on it again and we just pulled the songs that we thought worked, you know? Cause I had a huge catalogue and I just said “this one works and I could rework some”.,” There Will Be Blood Tonight” came on a whim, you know, I just wrote that and we recorded it (snaps fingers) like that and I sang it the first time….the way you heard it on the record is the first time I ever sang it. So, you know, we did that on a couple…I did that a couple of times. Even on this, APPOINTMENT WITH DEATH, same thing. We worked on it hard in the studio but I didn’t have any lyrics and I kind of would hum a melody here or there but when I started working on it, I changed everything. So the first time you hear…almost everything on that record is the first time I ever really sang it.

Why did you decide to cover an Alice Cooper song “Generation Landslide” on that one?

Well obviously Alice is a huge…I mean I’m a huge fan of Cooper’s so ah…we’ve played with him a few times and it was always great. He’s always a great guy. We wanted to try and find a song that we could do that would be ours and it was impossible because I mean every song, and I mean I’m such a huge fan of Bob Ezrin. His productions are something I live by. You know I really love them. I could never duplicate them in this day and age but back in the 70’s it was just such a great production.

Speaking about Bob Ezrin’s work, how do you like MUSIC FROM THE ELDER by KISS then?

You know? I haven’t listened to that record since it came out you know? But I don’t knock anything because I’m a huge KISS fan. I’m a monster KISS fan and you know at the time I really liked “The Oath” and then “A World Without Heroes” was interesting you know? So I don’t knock anything but I dunno, anyway, Bob Ezrin just, you know, I kind of wanted to do that. What was the original question? I forgot (Laughs)

It was about recording “Generation Landslide” for DEAL WITH THE DEVIL?

Oh right.

Lizzy singin’ "Born To Be Wild" in Swedenrock, that’s true !

NEW AND OLD MEMBERS

During these years, especially in the 80’s until now, you’ve had more than a few musicians who have played with you. Did you ever or have you ever gotten frustrated that your line up keeps changing quite often?

Yeah!

Do you find it frustrating to get new musicians all the time or do you find it more like a benefit to have some fresh blood like Ira Black in the band, stuff like that?

Yes, I mean we would never have Ira if we didn’t have such the turntable of musicians and Ira’s probably the best performing guitarist we’ve ever had. I mean on stage I can walk off stage and he can handle everything you know? He’s such a great performer and such a great guitar player. So we would have never met Ira if we would have stuck with the band. But on the other hand…on the other hand, you know, one of my favorite all time bands is Aerosmith and they’ve had that, you know, unit and each guy adds a piece to that puzzle and it’s such a great thing you know? So…I have mixed feelings about it. I never wanted…I always wanted one band to stay the band but it just never worked out that way. I mean, our first album LOVE YOU TO PIECES, when we recorded it…while we were recording, our guitar player at the time who we had started…we started Lizzy Borden like three times before it actually started with this guitar player, Tony Matuzak, and while he was recording, he had to go to jail the next day. So it was like “get your solos done, get your solos done”! He got his solos done and went to jail and I went “I got to find somebody else”. So right at the beginning it started that way.

Is it okay for you to ask more about your old band mates?

Just go for it!

Let’s start with Alex Nelson?

Uh… (Pause)… (Chuckles) That’s a tough one. I mean… (pause)…it’s a tough one because he was such a major part of what we did and, you know, and….people don’t know that we stayed on tour. We toured, we toured, we toured. We tried to come to Europe a couple of times. We did some things but it never really was promoted or anything like but he was such a big part of that travelling, you know? And we couldn’t do it without him. But then again he had problems too you know. At the start of every tour we’d usually have to collect him. Someone would actually have to carry him out of the apartment and pour him into the tour bus. So you know it was just one of those… but he had a great creative style and weak in other areas and that was his problem. But yeah, it’s tragic to go on without him because he would be so good with Ira. But we probably would have never looked for Ira if it wasn’t for Alex not being here.

How about Joe Holmes who later on played with David Lee Roth and Ozzy Osbourne?

Joe Holmes… We were in a band with him before. Our band was called Excalibur and it was a way before Lizzy Borden. He’s the nicest guy you’ll ever meet. Even goes to church every Sunday, but he’s a freak. I mean he’s just one of those weird guys that anytime success comes, you know, they want to ruin it you know? So…right out of our band he travelled with David Lee Roth, did a full on tour but he had to quit because David Lee Roth had devils on stage.

He quit because of that?

That’s true. He didn’t want to play next to the devil.

So he’s really a seriously religious guy?

Something like that? Later on Megadeth offered him the gig and he turned it down and then…

He got an offer from Megadeth? When did that happen?

They desperately wanted him and he turned it down. He said “I can’t play with a band that discusses all that stuff”. And even me, he wanted me to write lyrics that were more friendly (chuckles) you know? Like you know what? I’m an artist. I wrote what I want to write and if it comes out that way fine. If it doesn’t then…He knew he couldn’t move me but (snaps fingers) you know. And then…he ended up spending like five years rehearsing with his own band. It was all a waste of time. And actually Mike Davis, our other bass player, he’s a good friend of mine, played in that band for five years and they just rehearsed for five years. And at the end of it he said “why did I just waste five years of my life”? So then he joined Halford, you know? He plays with Halford when Halford goes on his solo thing.

I remember that Joey Vera also played with you at some point, when was that?

He came in on the TERROR RISING EP. We were really good friends with Armored Saint back in the days. We played a couple times together in L.A.

You’re still good friends with John Bush who is interviewing you on the DVD…

Yeah right, yeah. We’ve known each other for 25 years you know? So…we don’t see each other that often but we’ve known each other for so long and every time we need something “Joey, get over here”! you know? And in fact this record, Appointment With Death, I was going to bring in different singers too. We had Eric Bloom. We wanted him to come in and do some bits and pieces and the scheduling didn’t work out. And then a few other people that I wanted to bring in and it all kind of collapsed. We were getting guitar players to come in but we couldn’t get the singers to come in. I said “you know what? We’ll do this next time”. I really loved that too. If they do it right it’s really cool you know? To have Eric Bloom on the record would have been amazing. You know, I had a conversation with him a few times and he wanted to do it but it just didn’t work out.

"There Will Be Blood Tonight !"

THE FUTURE OF STARWOOD AND LIZZY BORDEN ?

How is your another band STARWOOD doing at the moment?

Starwood. We already recorded the next record. It’s done. It’s been sitting there, it was done before we even began APPOINTMENT WITH DEATH.

What is the real deal with Starwood? Why did you want two separate bands because you are the main guy for both bands?

You know, I think it’s because when I was a kid I saw Alice Cooper, and I wanted to be Alice, and then he went into new wave and all that stuff and I was like “What is this? I want the other stuff”. I was confused by it. Now I appreciate it and I like the fact he has done so many different types of things.

You don’t like "new wave" Alice as much as 70’s Alice?

I like parts of it, but I think part of everything is brilliant but some other parts are not my thing. But I didn’t want to push that on a 15 year old kid who loves what I am doing and all of a sudden they hear that and go “What the hell is this?” It is just something I wanted to do for fun because I grew up on 70’s rock, early KISS, early Aerosmith, Cheap Trick and all those bands. I wanted to kind of…I can write that style but it just never fit in the Lizzy Borden mould. So I wanted to do that just for fun. We did the first Starwood record so rough, we kind of just did it. The next one is so much better. I could listen to this album for the rest of my life.

What are the future plans of Lizzy Borden from now on? What’s going to happen after the Bang Your Head -festival?

Touring, touring, touring. Yeah, October, November. We’re working with someone right now who’s putting together…I saw the routings so far and it’s like, you know, two shows in each country. I think there are three shows in the UK but, you know I…basically what he’s got so far us just like two shows in every country. It’s supposed to start on Halloween…

Of course it starts on Halloween… "laughs"

And go through you know So…that’s what we’re shooting for.

Is it going to be you headlining or with somebody else?

You know what? I never want to headline but unfortunately I think we have to. It’s just because we can’t find the right situation. We’ve been waiting and waiting…

Maybe you have to call Lordi? (Chuckles)

We did! We did! We wanted to play with Lordi. We were like begging to play with Lordi because obviously they’re huge, but at the same time, you know, they’re fans of our music, we’re fans of their music. We get along. It would be great! But you know, it didn’t work out…For some reason we can’t get their…we can’t get on…you know? I don’t know what they’re doing. They’re working on a new record, that’s right. Actually Alice Cooper also asked them to come tour with him but they had to cancel that too because they are in the studio.

Yeah, yeah, that’s tragic. But I love the song writing that they do. It’s really catchy which I really like you know? By the time I’m done writing a song, I want to know it. I don’t want to have to listen to it twelve times you know?

Okay, maybe let’s start to set up the last question. In the past I used to buy Metal Hammer all the time and I remember that there was some kind of article that you were doing a tour with Manowar in Europe in late 80’s?

True!

In Germany, it was like some kind of Christmas tour. How was that? How do you get along with Joey DeMaio and the other guys?

You know what? We never really actually met them. It was one of those weird things. We went there and the poster reads…we even have the poster on our studio wall, and it says Manowar, Saxon, Lizzy Borden and then two other bands… I forget who they were. And when we get there the first night the other two bands had already been on the tour. The one band was…I think it was Sabbat? They were managed by Manowar’s management. So they said “we’re not going on first” and then the other band, Fates Warning, who are friends of mine too, they said “we’re not going on first”. So we actually had to open the show. The promoter came and says “look, I can’t do anything because of Manowar’s management and there’s nothing I can do. I’ll pay you the whole tour. You don’t have to do it. You don’t have to open up this thing”. And I said “you know what? Screw that, we’re playing. I’ll open up, I don’t care”. And every show was sold out, of course for Manowar, but from the beginning to the end. So we played to the full audience anyway so it was fine. The first night was rough. We still did well, but all the other nights we killed and I had pneumonia the whole tour. But we killed every night and in fact in the end, I think the whole band of Manowar came in with champagne bottles and just said “you know, thank you so much for doing it”. They didn’t do it to any other band on the bill. So I thought that was a pretty good compliment. And I know the singer watched our show almost every night. I saw him, you know, standing there watching the show.